America is a small‚ one-page chapter whose importance may not initially be perceived by even an attentive reader‚ but contains Alexis de Tocqueville’s view on democratic pantheism. It is by no coincidence that his essay on pantheism follows two significant chapters on the principal source of beliefs among the democratic peoples and America’s preference for general ideas. Tocqueville argued that‚ in order for a society to be successful and prosperous‚ the minds of its citizens must be held as one by certain
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What is Alexis de Tocqueville’s assessment of the state of race relations in the US? What kinds of futures did he predicts for the different ethnic groups? Were his predictions accurate? Alexis de Tocqueville was seen as the first real sociologist to appear in the United States. His studies were based on the American society and cultures. He was the first individual that reflects his studies were based on everything he had seen in society to show state of race relations in the U.S conditions of
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undermines freedom. Alexis de Tocqueville‚ has plenty to bring to the table with his cerebral perspective of liberty. His idea of freedom is to have equal opportunity but not equal outcome. Another word for that would be the ‘quality of condition’: the opposite of egalitarianism‚ in and of itself. Although Tocqueville does not believe that the American public can use their consumptive freedom properly‚ he states “the Americans entertain the same opinion with respect to the majority” (Tocqueville‚ Democracy
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In “Democracy in America‚” Alexis de Tocqueville argues that the biggest danger of democracy is the feeling of‚ what he coins‚ “Individualism.” Tocqueville states when introducing the concept of individualism that it is “of democratic origin” and may spread with the “same ratio as the equality of conditions” (Volume 2; Part 2; Ch 2.). His primary reason for this is that in an equal society men are no longer attached to other men. He compares it to an aristocracy‚ where every man is a link in a
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According to “Democracy in America‚” by Alexis de Tocqueville‚ democracy separates the generations to come with the present generation. This is because the bind that connects generations in aristocracy breaks in a democracy. For example‚ Tocqueville states that democracy hides a person’s descendents‚ while separating his contemporaries. He explains that in an aristocracy‚ a person always sees a man above himself and a man below him. Hence‚ why Tocqueville believes that aristocracy is better than
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Americans seem to inherently focus on individualism and self-interest‚ according to Caleb Jacobo and Alexis de Tocqueville. Tocqueville‚ a Frenchman who visited and wrote about America in the 19th century‚ and Jacobo‚ an American writing in the present day‚ have similar ideas despite their cultural differences. Jacob argues that this natural focus on individualism comes from America’s founders who came here in order to escape the popular statism in Europe‚ as he says that “America was built on the
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Tocqueville was a conservative from France whose ideas included order‚ natural hierarchy‚ obedience‚ ritual and religion. His idea of modernization included equality and democracy. His ideas of equality lead to the movement of egalitarianism and the fall of primogeniture. Egalitarianism’s affect ranged from the roles in the family line to the different positions at the work place. Tocqueville believed that with the rise of equality and with modern times the work place has lost its loyalty. Now it
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Insights on De Tocqueville’s Democracy In America It has been said that a French aristocrat Alexis de Tocqueville‚ who visited the United States in the 1830’s‚ "understood us" in a way that few observers (foreign and domestic) have. Furthermore‚ Tocqueville’s Democracy in America is often cited by present-day critics because so many of the observations in it seem extraordinarily suitable even more than one hundred and fifty years later. Alexis de Tocqueville was born 1805 into a minor noble
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While de Tocqueville warns of the threat of egotism‚ individualism‚ and despotism in democratic America‚ he counters these threats with an explanation of how America actively combats these potential vices. The three threats in democracy have greater potential to flourish as American equality becomes more coveted and widespread. In contrast with aristocratic nations‚ “democracy make[s] every man forget his ancestors…[and it] hides his contemporaries from him” (227). De Tocqueville continues to assert
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Since Alexis de Tocqueville was born shortly after the conclusion of the French Revolution‚ he escaped its physical brutality but not the religious aftershocks that followed. Tocqueville witnessed extremists overturning Christianity in favor of the Goddess of Reason‚ and he witnessed as the lack of religion drove French citizens to intellectual servitude. When he was granted permission to study the United States’ penal system‚ he took it as an opportunity to analyze the results of the democratic
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